


after party

by summerson



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Protective Catra, Protectiveness, Substance Abuse, Weed, catradora, closing time vibes, those birthday blues, unhealthyish coping mechanisms, you got what it takes to party with the cool kids?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerson/pseuds/summerson
Summary: Catra chuckles again before reaching out an offending needy hand. “Gimme.”Adora gives only the slightest pause before begrudgingly handing over the pen to Catra’s outreaching hand. Watches as Catra brings it to her lips and takes a long pulling drag. Eyes gazing back into the depths before she opens her mouth to let he vapor trails thread out her mouth like ribbons. Catra breathes it in, aware as Adora watches her movements. Eye contact never breaking as it trails through her lungs and she breathes it back out before handing the pen back.“What are we coping with again?” Catra speaks smooth and easy, the residual vapor still fuming out her mouth like smoke stacks.ORCatra and Adora riding out those post party vibes
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), catradora - Relationship
Comments: 16
Kudos: 167





	after party

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really high right now. I hope I don't regret posting later. ha

Catra walks into the dark and din of the bedroom. Dark and stale shadows that hung and sunk low in the air blinded and clouded Catra’s vision as she entered.

“Adora?”

No response.

Catra turns and cranes her neck as she adjusts to the dark. “…Adora?”

“Shut up. You’re so loud.”

Catra paces around the length of the bed to find her. Sprawled out on the floor, half slumped and craned against the bedside. Her leg was bunched up underneath her, the other stretched out flat against the carpet. Catra notes it must have fallen asleep with how long she’d been missing. And with the way her neck was bent Adora had to be uncomfortable. But she just stared ahead, slack and loosened against the frame like dead weight.

“What’s up,” Adora mumbles.

Catra stands there. Looks down at Adora who’s not…disheveled, per say, but torn up in all the places where she was usually so put together. The droop in her jaw. The shallow pull of her breathing. The puffs under her eyes.

“Are you high?”

“Define high.” Adora scrunches her brow unconcerned and lax. Not even turning to face Catra as she approaches.

“Are you high.” Catra doesn’t allow any room for question.

“It’s my birthday. Give me a fucking break.”

Catra rounds in front of Adora to kneel down. A respectable distances to where Catra can gaze at Adora’s reddened eyes. The crystal clear blue chased away by foggy dryness and crusted over tear tracks flaking on her skin.

Catra frowns as she lowers down. “How long have you been like this?”

Adora curls her head into her chest and then blinks back up at Catra. Eyes squinting up at her through some drug induced haze. They’re foggy red. A phantom crest of wetness still brimming and straining against the grain.

“When did Bow take off?”

“I don’t know. Couple hours ago.”

Adora’s eyes raise indifferently and she speaks low and unbothered. “Couple hours, then.”

Catra sighs….”Couple hours, then.”

Adora looks up at her then. Honed and focused like she’s just noticed Catra’s presence.

“Don’t tell me you’ve come to lecture me.”

Catra sucks in a breath and exhales it out with hefty helpless labor. “No, no I’m not that much of a hypocrite.”

“If you say so.” Her voice strains a little. Dry and rough as she speaks and stares somewhere at the carpet.

Catra lets out a half chuckle. Hunched limp and lonesome for a moment before she moves her bulk over to the bedside next to Adora. “I say so. Scooch.”

“Ugh.” Adora bemoans in discomforted protest.

“Scooch. Come on. I’m cold.”

“I’m not a space heater you know.”

Catra ignores her and continues to sidle in close as Adora gives a half hearted shove to the left.

“I have thoughts and opinions. Feelings.” Adora waves her hand loosely in the air to entail the rest.

Catra slumps and huffs as her tailbone juts into the floor beneath her. Turning her head to meet the side of Adora’s face. “All that on top of being a human boiler. You’re a real catch.”

“Tch.”

Catra chuckles again before reaching out an offending needy hand. “Gimme.”

Adora gives only the slightest pause before begrudgingly handing over the pen to Catra’s outreaching hand. Watches as Catra brings it to her lips and takes a long pulling drag. Eyes gazing back into the depths before she opens her mouth to let he vapor trails thread out her mouth like ribbons. Catra breathes it in, aware as Adora watches her movements. Eye contact never breaking as it trails through her lungs and she breathes it back out before handing the pen back.

“What are we coping with again?” Catra speaks smooth and easy, the residual vapor still fuming out her mouth like smoke stacks.

Adora’s mouth slowly clicks shut and she blinks. Reaches her hand back out for the pen and takes a quick half dab before forcing it back out. A quick bump to give her some leeway and send her gliding on the updraft of her exhale.

Adora wasn’t a stranger to weed. But these days it was more work and no play around here. Catra gets it. She doesn’t have the time for it either. But godamn she wished she did. She’s missed the way the smoke leeches and chases out the pain and wrings her muscles clean. Spreads in and out the seams and burns the branching fingers of her bloodstream out like steam. But they were both better now. Healthier. They had their shit together and they didn’t need any late night pick me ups to get them through the days anymore. Well…most days anyway.

“Nothing. Everything. You know how it is.” Puff. Pace. Pass.

Catra takes the offering and runs her finger against the cool metallic material. Tapping her finger to the heartbeat she can begin to hear in her ears. Feel in her stomach. Catra hums contemplatively. She did get it. The ins and outs of Adora’s mood swings. How the pressure and heft and weight of interacting with everything and everyone all day. Every day. For weeks on end. And falling prey underneath the crest of the wave as it came. Preparing for the enroaching crash and feeling the swell of the wave pump and hum in your bloodstream. Only to be pulled under and back up to the surface. Break surface.

How that was the easy part to grin and bear and grit against. That the hard part came afterwards. When it was just you. And everyone else had gone and she didn’t have to care anymore. But some phantom of responsibility urging her to keep on diving deeper and deeper. Catra knew all about that. So she took another drag as she contemplated the soft rise of Adora’s cheek in the dark. The soft orange glow of their conjoining bathroom nightlight burning low and steady onto Adora’s shadowy pooling face. The tired lines only now becoming visible from the contrast.

Catra leans up and pushes her face into Adora’s neck. Humming and pressing into all the warm soft spots as best she could. Murmuring as softly and as tenderly as she dared without appearing too sympathetic. “Yeah. I get it.”

Adora’s smile curls as it takes her by surprise. The thrum and vibrations of Catra’s voice sending it curling up. Tickling the insides ion her stomach and tightening the muscles in her face. She scrunches up despite herself and chuckles. Not as earnestly as Catra would have it but better than nothing.

“There you are.” Catra chuckles softly as she opens her mouth only just. Teeth and tongue playing ever so sightly at soft skin under her lips. And Adora brings an arm behind her. Up and across her shoulder, up to the back of her neck, head, hand in her hair as she pushes her closer to either quell the tickling vibrations or bear into them she doesn’t know. But it’s hilarious so she laughs into it which makes Adora shiver and giggle and curl as she tries to squirm.

“Cat-! Ca-haha-Ca-t….Ha…haha..”

Catra just grins and continues her tickling and trailing kisses up to the underside of Adora’s jaw, further still to her cheeks. And her nose. Her face and her eyes which squeeze shut. Her teeth shine in the dark as she smiles and pushes back in retaliation. Shoving Catra back a half step while she presses their foreheads together and laughs.

Catra laughs soft, soft, soft, in the back of her throat because it’s the softest happiness she’s ever known and it doesn’t hurt with how hard and fast it feels but makes her ache with how slow and burning it blazes. Content and warm. The weed doesn’t hurt things either.

“Feeling better?” Catra’s eyes open and she does her best to catch the blue iris of Adora’s. See into the reflective shine and reach into the well where all the answers are. Adora’s voice is just as tender when she responds.

“I wasn’t feeling ‘ _bad_.’ ” And she threads the fingers of her free hand with Catra’s to rest in their laps. Catra gives pause, allowing Adora to elaborate. But all she does is frown and furrow deeper into Catra’s side.

“I know that. But that doesn’t mean something wasn’t wrong.” That Adora was ok. Catra knew that just because Adora was functioning didn’t mean shit. Sometimes it just meant she was at her worst. Just trying to make up for how shitty she felt because she thought her shitty mood made her think she was doing a shitty job. While all Catra could do was sit and stay close.

“We should clean up.” Neither of them moved. Too slack jawed and tired and comfortable to give way to their obligations. Though Adora gave it her best go and put up a meager effort of scrunching up her legs and readying to push to a stand, hand gone to the bed frame and sheets so she can push up. Catra makes a big dramatic show of looping her arms around Adora’s middle and pulling her back into her lap.

“Cat…”

“mmm…” she groans in protest.

“Cat…” Adora’s fingers do a poor job of prying herself free of Catra’s relaxed yet tight hold.

“I’ll clean it up tomorrow. Don’t worry about it right now.” It’s muffled into Adora’s sweatshirt but she doesn’t really care if Adora can hear her. Not when she’s already slinking and falling back into her hold like boneless putty.

“Oh. You’ll clean it up tomorrow will you?” But Adora’s already sinking back down into the carpet and onto Catra’s inner shoulder. Resting her head atop Catra’s and letting her eyes droop almost closed.

“mmmhm.”

“You’re so responsible.”

“I know right…it’s so annoying.”

“Ha!” Catra can feel Adora nose the top of her head and into the strands of her hair. The residue durggy haze bleeding into something softer and more intimate. “You’re annoying.”

“Hm…” Catra leans up further. As far as she can so she can push the boundary in between them thinner and Catra can push forth as much of herself and support into Adora as she can. But then she gives pause. Hinged by the gravity of something that possesses her with heart heavy force as Catra breathes in the heady scent of weed and extract. “You know I love you, right? I love you.” She says as she palms at the soft underside of Adora’s forearm.

“I know that.” Adora hums and soothes as she plays her fingers against Catra’s skin. And it’s ridiculous because Catra can’t even tell where Adora’s even touching her. Ridiculous that all she needs to know is that Adora’s close and that that was fucking good enough for her. Ridiculous that she is this irrevocably and unapologetically in love with this neurotic control freak and ridiculous how badly she needed said neurotic control freak to know just _how_ much she loved her.

“No. Listen. I _love_ you.”

Adora’s fingers give pause in the calming circles their drawing somewhere on Catra’s skin.

“Cat-“

Catra growls and reaches up in frustration at what’s locking up somewhere in her throat. Sweling to the point that it might choke her with how badly she needed to say this and for it to be _heard_. Her hands grasp down onto the roots of Adora’s scalp as they rifle and card through her soft hair. She brings her eyes up to lock onto hers.

“I love you.”

Adora’s eyes knit and though her eyes are a little misty they latch on and hold as steady as her grip on Catra’s wrists. “I - love you too.”

“I love you.”

A little softer. “Cat…-“

“I love you.”

Their foreheads pressed together.

“I love you.”

The darkness pressed in around them.

…

“I love you.”

Catra’s eyes blaze down into Adora’s to convey just how much she cared for her. How much she adored her. Worshiped her. Had always, has always, would always love her. And what the magnitude and depth of that meant as Catra thought of all the unforgivable things she’d do without a second thought for this godamn. Perfect human being in front of her. And all she wanted was for Adora to know that. That’s all she was trying to do as she continued to gaze and stare down, eyes almost welling their own tears from the pressure of it.

Adora breathes shaky then and reaches up herself. Both hands raised up to frame either side of Catra’s face as she breathes and runs her fingers over the soft skin at Catra’s temples. And they’re so close their breaths mix and mingle on each exhale, each inhale like incense. And it brings this heat and softness between them to a swelling break and ocean tide all it’s own.

Adora breathes. “I know.” Catra releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Eyes never leaving Adora’s as they bore into each other. “I love you too.” Adora whispers it like a breeze that settles easy in Catra’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, Adora is such like...such a mood. You know? Didn't really have a plan going into this. Just knew I had to write something fluffy to make up for all the angst. And even this is kind of angsty...why am I like this???
> 
> Please comment freely and constructively. Feedback, both positive and critical, helps more than you know. Remember to drop in and read again every once in a while. I tend to come back and edit/add small changes 2-3 days after posting (because for some reason my proof reading and editing skills don't fully activate unless I've already hit post ???)


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